Window Dressing or Racial Justice? Examining Commitments to Racial Justice in Teacher Education

• In Event: Different Words, Same Song: Ecologies of Whiteness Within Higher Education

Abstract

So much about the ecologies of higher education after the 2020 movements for George Floyd and Breonna Taylor is about the perceived commitment to racial justice. Nowhere is this more evident than in schools of education and teacher education programs, where cohort upon cohort of teacher candidates are trained in anti-racist pedagogies in the hope that they will impart that skillset to the generations of K-12 students they teach. Yet, despite the mass pontification of racial justice statements, university ad hoc committees on race, and/or proclaimed commitments to racial justice, racism, whiteness, and white supremacy remain intact. In fact, they have mutated in even more covert and blatant ways. As such, in this time of paradigmatic shifts, how does whiteness still manifest in higher education programs like teacher education, where the commitments to anti-racism become more about racial window dressing than racial justice?


Significance
As Cabrera (2018) offers, instead of “never uttering his name”, teacher educators are indeed now uttering the name of racism. But within this naming of racism is a refusal to acknowledge white supremacy and whiteness. Perhaps one name is not enough. As an extension of Cabrera’s argument, in which he parallels the ecologies of whiteness in higher education to wizards’ refusal to say Lord Voldemort’s name aloud in Harry Potter, teacher education with all its antiracist books clubs, antiracist teaching practices, and antiracist professional development trainings are shouting the name of race so loudly, hoping that this is enough to “make the social problems magically disappear” (p. 149). Such performative behavior threatens the intent of racial justice work because, as the showboating of antiracism occurs, the deeper reflective and emotional labor is overlooked.
Theoretical Framework & Methods
This theoretical paper draws from critical race hermeneutics (Allen, 2021) to interpret how anti-racism movements can be conduits for whiteness anew, and, if left unchecked, can do more harm than good in education. Particularly reviewing the emergence of book clubs, professional development training, and courageous conversations, this paper seeks to reveal how whiteness continues to manifest in ways that appear--to draw from Bonilla-Silva (2013) --not only racism light but racial justice light.
Results
Though results have yet to be determined, the paper hypothesizes how these approaches to racial justice in teacher education then evolve racism, whiteness, and white supremacy in novel ways that will need novel strategies to redress.

Connection to Conference Theme
The hope of building a more equitable education for the 21st century must rely on connecting current events now like racial justice movements post George Floyd and Breonna Taylor to the past. As such, researchers have a duty to connect the then to the now so that research can build a more equitable future.

Author

• Cheryl E. Matias, University of Kentucky